The Process of change in a public higher education institution: contributions of a collaborative methodology at UNESP

Abstract

The text refers to a participatory and collaborative methodological experience with São Paulo State University (UNESP) employees that craved to understand public management practices in higher education, in the face of economic and socio-political transformations. Based on the concepts of organizational culture, communication and change process, a systematic analysis of the reality of the institution is presented, based on the reports and praxis of servers of twelve university campus at São Paulo State University (UNESP). The discussion about processes, people, platforms and the analysis of the practices used for management give access to a range of information and perspectives, which would be difficult to achieve without the active and conscious participation of the subjects themselves. In addition, the involvement of the actors of the various university campus allowed the protagonism of those involved in the review of the institution's current management model, in the survey of the diagnosis and in the preparation of the management proposal. The results show the complexity of a change process, indicating to effective participation, as an essential condition to increase the relevance of the proposal. Another important aspect is the potential for problematizing and transforming reality, which the practices of participatory research brought on to the formation of a critical and active collective, in which the subjects who engaged in the study, besides to having their knowledge valued, in return, were benefited in training and changing attitudes about academic management.